Yale or Northwestern 7yr Med Program?

<p>Yeah, I agree that gina really needs to see which school fits her better, which it seems like its Yale. For me, I really like Northwestern when I visited and I really felt like it was the right school for me. I'm planning on a liberal arts education at Northwestern so that I can become a doctor with a broad education, and I really feel that HPME will allow me to pursue my interests. I also like Feinberg's PBL curriculum. Just out of curiosity, bluedevilmike what do not like about Feinberg's curriculum and what type of med school curriculum would you prefer over it?</p>

<p>1.) I don't like PBL, which sounds great in theory but if you think about it is just a bunch of students with a case study and a stack of books trying to figure stuff out on their own. Faculty mentors are intentionally selected out of their specialty so that they'll be less helpful. It gets very tiresome very fast.</p>

<p>2.) Their first year is too light, which makes their second year too brutal.</p>

<p>3.) There's some disagreement over what their board scores are. If my memory is correct -- and it might not be -- they're surprisingly low.</p>

<p>4.) Organ-based makes sense in theory but the timing doesn't work. So either they're not actually organ-based, in which case they should stop making such a big deal about it, or their curriculum is really, really distorted.</p>

<p>so what kind of curriculum would you recommend?</p>

<p>... a standard one.</p>

<p>Bluedevil and three6mafia, the problem is that no one really knows what the best way to learn medicine is. The human body is so interconnected that inevitably a pathology in one system affects the pathology of another in a way you haven't learned yet because you haven't studied X organ yet and won't for another few months. That said, the organ system method is a very logical way to structure a curriculum and most school are moving towards something resembling that. What an "organ-system-based" curriculum means is that instead of studying anatomy, histology, physiology, pathophysiology, etc. in blocks as you do in a traditional curriculum, you integrate them by organ system, so that at one given time you learn the normal function of the kidney, diseases of the kidney, and the therapy for these diseases (pharmacology). It's extremely logical, the one main flaw being that once you're done with a particular organ, you won't see material on it again until the boards. </p>

<p>Which brings me to my next point - board scores aren't necessarily the best measure of a school's worth. Since how well a given person does on the boards is largely based on the amount of individual effort they put into studying, board scores tell you less about a school's ability to communicate and teach information than how much time they structure into their curriculum for students to study. Penn, for instance, has a month off from school to study for the boards and their students have the highest boards scores in the nation. Boards are also not the best predictor of clinical skill. They are essentially a trumped up MCATs, testing things like how well you know the citric acid cycle, and thus don't correlate well with your overall ability as a doctor. Another caveat: boards, like MCATs, are important only insofar as you score within a given range. The difference between a 236 and a 225 is negligible when it comes to residency (as you can tell by comparing a school's average board scores to their residency match lists).</p>

<p>Also, I wouldn't really focus too much on the stucture of the first two years in medical school. As many wise people have said, you learn the same material (and often forget it anyway! Think about how many times you've studied for an exam and then have forgotten all you learned afterwards) so what ultimately matters is your clinical training that comes in your third and fourth years. The clinical years cement the material in your mind where it sticks with you. Go to a school you will enjoy that will give you a good clinical education.</p>

<p>Lastly, PBL tends to differ from school to school. I don't know what Feinberg's PBL is like, but I've heard great things from Harvard students about their "tutorial" experience. They tell me it's essentially akin to seminar learning where people discuss cases in small groups. I think if you're given the appropriate amount of material beforehand, it can be a very neat way to integrate your learning into a style of reasoning that you will use for the rest of your life. Again, I can't speak to the Feinberg experience but I wouldn't write off PBL overall as a terrible way to learn.</p>

<p>Thanks Zippership for your post. From what I've read on Feinberg's website about their PBL curriculum, it sounds a lot like what you described in your last paragraph. I don't know anything about Harvard's curriculum except that it is PBL also, so I don't really know how to compare the two. Here a link to Northwestern's description of their PBL curriculum: <a href="http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/M1/curriculum/pbl.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/M1/curriculum/pbl.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>1.) Organ-based learning is neat in principle except that the timing doesn't actually work unless you're willing to delay some courses in favor of accelerating others dramatically. Take cardiology. The anatomy of the heart takes, what, fifteen minutes. Four chambers, four valves, and an aorta. The physiology of the heart is several weeks long. So unless you're willing to delay anatomy for three weeks so that physiology can catch up, the problem is that different organs have different needs regarding their scheduling. Skeletal musculature presents the opposite problem.</p>

<p>I don't know how Feinberg works around this difficulty.</p>

<p>2.) Obviously PBL works well for some students, but I think -- and Feinberg agrees, which I'll explain in a moment -- that there are many students for whom it's a horrible way to learn.</p>

<p>I infer that Feinberg believes this because their application process is very oriented towards seeing how we would respond to a PBL curriculum. They have essays devoted to it and they actually have us doing group-based problem solving as a part of the interview. They are trying to see whether we are good "fits" for that style of learning, from which you can infer that they don't believe all students are good fits.</p>

<p>I certainly would not have been, but I can easily believe that there are some students for whom it would be.</p>

<p>3.) Northwestern has an amazing hospital.</p>

<p>this was written on these message boards last year by a doctor:</p>

<p>I have read these posts for months. I am a dad whose S is now in the same predicament. Excellent college vs 7 year med program. Fortunately, I am also a physician who had his own experience with med school admissions (although 27 years ago) and has also watched s's and d's of friends go through the pre med mill. Let me try to shed some light on your dilemma.
First... There are many excellent undergraduate institutions that send many of their premeds to medical school. The rates of admissions to medical school are reported during their on campus Q and A sessions and occassionally on their websites. Overall acceptance to medical school is hovering around 50%. This is a grossly overestimated number since it doesn't come close to accounting for those students that get "weeded out" in freshman bio, calculus, or if they get that far, organic chemistry. I know personally 3 very successful lawyers my age that all started college as premeds. I know innumerable friends of my daughter who are now in law school or business school as a result of their failed attempts to do well in pre med at college. These are students that never registered to EVEN APPLY to medical school. They all were excellent students in high school with high expectations and dreams of a career in medicine. These students went to Duke, Emory, Michigan, etc., their life long aspirations and expectations were dashed in less than one year at their "dream" school.
Second... There is this popular misconception that the combined programs won't afford you the same opportunities for residencies as a "better" medical school and that by attending a great and venerable institution like Duke or MITor Princeton, you may be afforded the opportunity if you do well, to attend Harvard, JHU, Wash U or Stanford Medical School. Again, everyone falls prey to the same faulty logic. I think you are all better served to just to buy a lottery ticket and pray. Medical school admissions is a crapshoot. Go to MDapplicants.com and look at the schools individuals are going to. In the end, so many thingsw will impact your eventual decision. I personally passed up a top 3 medical school to attend a school that was near my girlfriend (who is now my wife). I made the right decision and it hasn't effected my ability to have a very successful practice. In the end no matter where you go for med school, the best residencies go to the best students in each class, and that can be done at BU, and GWU as easily as Wash U. As a physician and head of a large subspecialty group, I can tell you that the last thing I look at when I scan a candidates CV is the college and medical school from which they came. I look at their fellowship and go backward from there. If you are at the top of your med school class, you will get the good residency, ditto for fellowship.
Third...Having the ivy league college experience is worth passing up a guaranteed med program. If you ask pre meds at any quality school in the country, they will all tell you that they have a much different experience than everyone else. While everyone is soaking in the culture and intellectual experiences of the diverse, eclectic environment that is called ivy league, the pre meds are studying and stressed out. When my D told me about the premed students taking sleeping bags to the library, I was amazed. If that is going to be your competition for a med school spot, then you will be very embarrassed when you will need to rationalize to yourself why medicine was really not for you, while always knowing that you succumbed to the pressure and the competition and got eliminated from contention like many before you. You will wish you never turned down that guaranteed spot to a good but not great med school.
Fourth....nothing in life is guaranteed. The med school spot is about as close as you can get to a guaranteed MD. No one knows what may happen to you or your family or loved ones in the next four years that may preclude you from realizing your dream of a medical career. The illness of a loved one or even a bad case of mono could be enough to taint a semester's grades. The med school adcoms won't care.
Finally... It all comes down to passion. If your passion is to be a doctor, then to me there is no choice. Others have gone to foreign medical schools, learned foreign languages and waited to reapply year after year to fulfill their dreams of medicine. If a medical career is just a passing fancy of yours or just 'it seems like a good idea for now', then by all means go to the ivy and test the waters. There is no paucity of students who will jump into your spot no matter what hoops they have to jump through to get there.</p>

<p>1.) I've recently obtained Duke's incoming freshmen numbers, approximately. As it turns out, we have more students applying to medical school each year than actually enter as premeds. So we actually have negative attrition, and our 85% turns out to be a pretty good estimate.</p>

<p>I should have realized this, being a negatively attrited student myself.</p>

<p>2.)
[quote]
In the end no matter where you go for med school, the best residencies go to the best students in each class, and that can be done at BU, and GWU as easily as Wash U.

[/quote]
This is, of course, a gross oversimplification of the truth, but it is truthful. Obviously the top students at any school will get the medical schools/residencies they desire. As BRM is fond of saying -- and I am fond of quoting -- "Excelling is a panacea." This is fine if you're an excellent student, in the top few handful in your class. But mediocre students -- such as myself -- can often be substantially helped by the resources made available by top-flight programs.</p>

<p>For example, UC Berkeley -- a high-caliber institution -- sends about 13 students to top-ten medical schools each year in a class of 10,000. Duke sends 45 with a student body of 1600. If you're going to be in the top 0.1% of your school, then you can go wherever you like and it's not a problem. But what if you're not that kind of student? What if you're only a top-2% student? Marginal students can be very helped by the advising and curriculum that private schools like Duke can provide.</p>

<p>For the record, by the way, I wasn't even in Duke's top 12% -- or my high school's top 50% -- and I certainly have no complaints.</p>

<p>3.)
[quote]
the last thing I look at when I scan a candidates CV is the college and medical school from which they came.

[/quote]
This is obviously true, and it continues to prove BRM's point about excelling wherever you go being the most important component. But there is a certain degree of chain-reaction inertia. Can this be overcome by an excellent student? Of course. But, again, what about middling students? It's true that the valedictorian of the University of Texas at Houston will probably do just as well as the valedictorian of UC San Francisco, but the kids in the middle of those two classes will have very different outcomes.</p>

<p>4.)
[quote]
When my D told me about the premed students taking sleeping bags to the library

[/quote]
I certainly never saw this happen at Duke. I won't speak for other schools, but I suspect NCG and PSAS will be here shortly to tell you that they didn't see it at Cornell or Penn either. My father certainly never saw it at MIT.</p>

<p>5.) I'm spending the afternoon in the ER. I'll finish more later.</p>

<p>where can we find that data abtu duke?</p>

<p>To all those who might be reading this thread and are at bulldog days...go to Yale UCS for the medical school stats. You will be very impressed!</p>

<p>Duke's HPAC makes this information available online. They are by far the most complete school I've ever seen.</p>

<p>I don't know what kind of school this physician's daughter goes to. Certainly I don't know anybody who slept at the library. Duke's library isn't even open past 2 AM.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I think you are all better served to just to buy a lottery ticket and pray.

[/quote]
The process may seem very random to outsiders, but -- trust me -- it's not. Or, at least, there are ways to minimize the problems associated with that randomness, which is why the advising you'll find at Yale is crucial to the application process. (I'm sure NU's advising is fine, too.) It is nothing like a lottery, and in fact the underlying system makes a great deal of sense once you accomodate some variation in outcomes.</p>

<p>Virtually all Yalies get into their top choice medical school. A huge number of them end up at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Yale for medical school. If you are very ambitious but also want to enjoy your time as an undergraduate and take advantage of the resources that only a place like Yale (and there are very few places like it) can offer, there's really no comparison between Yale and NU. If not, it doesn't really matter.</p>

<p>posterX, I have seen some of your other posts on this Yale forum, but you seem to have the most Yale favoritism I have seen. You see Yale engineering and sciences better than MIT. It is definately not true that all Yalies get in their top choice medical schools. As neom3x11 pointed out in another forum to other posters, I do not respect your (and other poster's) notion that an Ivy League is somehow unqualifiably "better" than HPME. I don't respect the view that people in HPME are somehow insecure, misguided, and hopelessly locked in their situation with no chance of enjoying their undergraduate life. And I do not respect the belief that everybody in HPME would be regretting their decision, or want the easy way out, or are scared of standardized tests. HPMEs, in general, are just as smart and motivated as you are. Not smartER, not MORE motivated. And certainly not less.</p>

<p>... I don't believe he's said any of those things on this thread. And if he's said them elsewhere, wouldn't those threads make better locations for a response?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Virtually all Yalies get into their top choice medical school.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am sure someone can easily think of a better lie than this one. ;)</p>

<p>Hhaha... to the above quote.</p>

<p>Yea, certainly not true. My sister went to Yale-- you'd be surprised at how many of her friends are stuck in limbo right now going for masters and PhD's because they didn't get into the medical schools they wanted and are now pursuing advanced degrees in order to reapply. </p>

<p>Bottom line. If you are 100% sure you want to be a doctor go to NU's guaranteed program. If you think you may want to change your mind and be a doctor/business/banking or other stuff along the line, go to Yale. I think someone mentioned this before, but Princeton University-- certainly at or above Yale's caliber-- only had an acceptance rate of 16.5% into NU Medical School. If you know you are going to be a doctor, as many of my friends KNOW they want, 100% hands down NU.</p>

<p>
[quote]
only had an acceptance rate of 16.5% into NU Medical School.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>1.) These are not all students of the caliber of students who were admitted to HPME.</p>

<p>2.) Many of these students probably elected not to follow through with their applications, especially that Feinberg doesn't really roll. I applied to Yale School of Medicine, for example, but was already offered a full-tuition scholarship to a school that I preferred. I thus declined to interview with them when I was invited to do so. I thus would count as a "rejection" from Yale SOM even though I probably would have stood a ~40% chance of getting in. The 16.5% is an artificially depressed number.</p>

<p>3.) The question is, what students are admitted to a school like Feinberg or one that they prefer? (This is not the same as a higher-ranked school.) The number is going to be higher than 16.5%.</p>

<p>Choe_gina:</p>

<p>I accidentally crossed this thread's path and read your question and responses with some personal interest. I graduated from the HPME program at Northwestern several years ago and have been on faculty at a well known medical school for some time now. Years ago, I had a similar choice to make. While some of the responding posts are on target, I have to agree with bluedevilmike that others (e.g. those of posterx) are heavily tainted by personal bias and gross misinformation. This is what has prompted this post.</p>

<p>Competition for spots at HPME is off the charts. Median SAT scores of admitted students 2 years ago was near 1550, SAT 2's at 770. Virtually all those who attend the program have turned down, as you would, HYPS...... The reason most decide on an HPME path is for the freedom it offers - the freedom to take advanced, competitive or non-traditional courses without concerns about grades, the freedom to pursue extracurricular interests related or unrelated to medicine/science without worrying that the time commitment might compromise your GPA, the freedom to take a 4th year to travel the world/do bench research/volunteer in a medically underserved community/..... A standard pre-med path will inevitably be much more stress-laden. Fortunately, graduating from Yale, your probability of being accepted to some medical school is exceptionally high. However, as Sam Lee points out, at top med schools like Northwestern, entry unfortunately remains an educated crapshoot (only 1 in 6 Tigers admitted to NUMS, stats likely similar for a Bulldog). </p>

<p>Northwestern is the oldest of the combined BS/MD programs and, unlike several others (e.g. Wash U), does not place onerous requirements re: achievement of super-inflated GPAs/MCATs to advance to their medical school. NU has held true to the idea that students can be trusted not to abuse the freedom they are given. Those I knew did just that. They today are respected department chairmen, notable researchers, and valued community doc's that, as a group, would affirm the value this remarkable program offered.</p>

<p>I hope this has been of some help. If, after carefully weighing options, you still feel that your heart is strongly pulling you to Yale, head off to New Haven and attend this remarkable institution. You will not be making a mistake. These next 4 years are too valuable and they are irretrievable.</p>

<p>Princeton is not at or above Yale's caliber. In terms of success rates at getting into the top five medical schools, the schools with the best placement rates (adjusting for the # of students who apply to medical school) are Caltech, Yale, MIT, and Amherst, followed by Harvard, Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins. Princeton is pretty far down the list. </p>

<p>Also, based on the average SAT, NMSC %, etc., of the students who matriculate there, its alumni aren't as qualified as those at HYMC.</p>